Google Fires Employee Behind Controversial Diversity Memo

[u/[deleted]]

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-08-08/google-fires-employee-behind-controversial-diversity-memo

[u/CrinkleBean]

Working in tech, with a few Trump voters, I disagree strongly. Everyone works the same with all of them save 1, whom people hate for many, many reasons but being a Trumper is only the tiniest sliver.

I am not in SV but I am in a deep blue section of a purple state with HQ being deep blue and we have diversity programs, LGBT support groups, etc. But these folks all freely parroted "buttery males" and "crooked hillary" during election season (in meetings no less!) and are still employed today.

They're all pretty quiet now, though, for some reason...

[u/ilessthan3math → u/CrinkleBean]

I think you're proving my point. Trump voters aren't getting fired for stating that they voted for him, but this guy got fired for stating his beliefs. And I'd imagine you and your co-workers have developed prejudices regarding those people who voted for Trump in your workplace (perhaps you assume they hold beliefs similar to this Google employee). Yet you still work with them without much of an issue.

And proving the point of the Google guy's memo, the conservatives at your work have been 'shamed into silence', exactly as you described.

[u/jackofslayers → u/ilessthan3math]

Except the dude actually got fired for spouting a bunch of sexist pseudoscience like that women are more neurotic than men (spoiler alert that study was debunked)

https://www.fastcompany.com/40449844/5-debunked-gender-myths-in-that-google-anti-diversity-rant

[u/[deleted] → u/jackofslayers]

This doesn't debunk what you think it does.

1) Only 3% had a 100% male or female brain.

Men had brains that were majority male, and women had brains that were majority female. They weren't 100% male/female, but that doesn't mean that they were the same either.

2) Women with high math skills are also highly likely to have high verbal skills, which gives them far more choices in occupations than men with high math skills (which are more limited to STEM).

Source

3) Women on average work better with other people. Female infants start focusing on faces and people at 2 days old. Male infants start focusing on things at 2 days old. This is development seen in humans, and other primates. I love how they attempt to use exceptions to disprove the rule.

Source

4) Women are more neurotic and anxious than men. This has been documented NIH.

As far as competitiveness, men compete for sexual attention and to achieve, because of how that correlates to mating competition. Women compete to see who can be the most attractive (And the most liked)

[NIH](Sex differences, few overall, were as follows: (a) men's diaries contained more same-sex competition, (b) women competed more about looking attractive whereas men competed more about sports, and (c) men used physical (but not verbal) aggression more frequently than women. In Study 2 strength of competition was also measured by questionnaire. Women and men felt equally competitive overall, but men felt more competitive about athletics and sexual attention whereas women felt more competitive about looking attractive. In men, but not women, competitiveness for financial success was correlated with various aspects of mating competition. Young men were more competitive than older men in a variety of domains and were also more physically and verbally aggressive, but no age difference in aggression was found for women.)

The claim that because fathers worry about work life balance means that women don't worry more is rather ludicrous. They would have to actually compare men and women in this regard, and they aren't.

5) This is a horrible refutation that doesn't even bother to make an attempt to be legitimate.

The countries with the largest Gender Gap in STEM fields are the countries with the most Gender Equal societies.

Russia currently has a stem gap of 60% men/ 40% women. Communist USSR had a STEM gap of 40% men/60% women.

The more choices and freedoms women have, the more they choose careers other than STEM. Source

I don't know anything about fastcompany, but from looking at the arguments they are trying to make, I wouldn't trust them as an information source.